GREGOR GLEIWITZ, MIRON SCHMÜCKLE

Nature Studies brings together two gallery artists who dedicate their art to the contemplation of nature. Highly divergent in their approach, Schmückle delving into high realism while the Gleiwitz’s images are deeply abstracted, their mutual engagement with this subject speaks to their shared admiration for the natural world. Exploring their individual experience of the sublime, whether through flurries of fantastical flora or by unveiling the essence of plein air encounters, their art is focused on revealing nature’s mysteries.

The exhibition will take this shared subject as a point to reflect on their individual artistic achievements. Each is a painter immersed in an aesthetic language, dedicated to their own techniques. Both harness the energy of fantasy to evolve art works from nature, but nature amplified through human experience. The results are radically different. What is immediately clear when encountering their art is that their mutual fascination with our earthly landscape is an ever-generative subject.

This presentation will include a focused survey of Gregor Gleiwitz’s oeuvre, juxtaposing historical works on paper with historically scaled canvases which explore the boundaries between abstraction and figuration. Also, seen for the first time, we will present a selection of plein air studies which the artist makes to contemplate and absorb the natural environment for his paintings.

An early photo series by Miron Schmückle, Hortus Conclusus, will be brought into conversation with recent works including the epic Cosmic Attractor, a mammoth drawing which initiated the series now on view at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt. We will also present new paintings based in his keen understanding and observations of nature, with all its diverse colors, shapes and textures. Through deep contemplation of flora, in all its romantic dimensions, the artist touches on themes of gender, sexuality, and beauty. Through the fantasy of their portrayal, he explores the potential of these imaginaries to realize flights of fancy which take us out and beyond the everyday.